This study assessed the implementation and impact of the One Vision One Life (OVOL) violence-prevention strategy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2003, the rise in violence in Pittsburgh prompted community leaders to form the Allegheny County Violence Prevention Imitative, which became the OVOL program. The OVOL program sought to prevent violence using a problem-solving, data-driven model to inform how community organizations and outreach teams respond to homicide incidents. The research team exa... (more info)

This study assessed the implementation and impact of the One Vision One Life (OVOL) violence-prevention strategy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2003, the rise in violence in Pittsburgh prompted community leaders to form the Allegheny County Violence Prevention Imitative, which became the OVOL program. The OVOL program sought to prevent violence using a problem-solving, data-driven model to inform how community organizations and outreach teams respond to homicide incidents. The research team examined the impact of the OVOL program on violence using a quasi-experimental design to compare violence trends in the program's target areas before and after implementation to (1) trends in Pittsburgh neighborhoods where One Vision was not implemented, and (2) trends in specific nontarget neighborhoods whose violence and neighborhood dynamics One Vision staff contended were most similar to those of target neighborhoods. The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police provided the violent-crime data, which the research team aggregated into monthly counts. The Pittsburgh Department of City Planning provided neighborhood characteristics data, which were extracted from the 2000 Census. Monthly data were collected on 90 neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1996 to 2007, resulting in 12,960 neighborhood-by-month observations.

Universe:
All neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1996-2007.

Data Types:
administrative records data,
census/enumeration data

Data Collection Notes:

The research team also collected information from clients in the One Vision One Life program through intake forms completed by OVOL community coordinators, conducted field observations and interviews with One Vision staff and key community stakeholders, and obtained community risk-assessment documents. However, these data are not available as a part of this data collection.

Methodology

Study Purpose:
The research team sought to determine how and to what extent the One Vision One Life (OVOL) violence-prevention strategy was implemented and examine the impact OVOL had on violence in the targeted and surrounding communities.

Study Design:
The research team examined the impact of the One Vision One Life (OVOL) program on violence using a quasi-experimental design to compare violence trends in the program's target areas before and after implementation to (1) trends in Pittsburgh neighborhoods where One Vision was not implemented, and (2) trends in specific nontarget neighborhoods whose violence and neighborhood dynamics One Vision staff contended were most similar to those of target neighborhoods. Specifically, the principal investigators examined the impact of One Vision on community violence using three measures: homicides, aggravated assaults, and aggravated assaults with a gun. The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police provided incident-level data for homicides occurring between January 1, 1997, and December 31, 2007, as well as for aggravated assaults and gun assaults between January 1, 1996, and December 31, 2007. The research team aggregated these data into monthly counts. The Pittsburgh Department of City Planning provided neighborhood characteristics data, which were extracted from the United States Census Bureau's Census 2000.

Sample:
Monthly data were collected on 90 neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1996 to 2007, resulting in 12,960 neighborhood-by-month observations.

Time Method:
Time Series

Weight:
None.

Mode of Data Collection:
record abstracts

Data Source:

The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police provided the violent-crime data.

The Pittsburgh Department of City Planning provided the neighborhood characteristics data which were extracted from the United States Census Bureau's Census 2000.

Description of Variables:
The study contains a total of 167 variables including date variables, violent crime variables, and neighborhood characteristics variables. Date variables include month and year indicators. Violent crime variables include the monthly number of homicides, aggravated assaults, and aggravated assaults with a gun. Neighborhood characteristics variables include various socioeconomic and
demographic measures such as the density of the neighborhood, the labor force indicators, the age and income level of the neighborhood population, the number of persons receiving public assistance, the percentage of housing units that are vacant, and the proportion of the population that moved to their current residence in the previous five years.

Response Rates:
Not applicable.

Presence of Common Scales:
None.

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: